


Blackbird

by angelsprunch



Series: song based fics [5]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: I tried to make it sad, M/M, Self-Harm, Suicide, there's some birds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 20:28:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12515896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsprunch/pseuds/angelsprunch
Summary: Stan wants to fly, but he can't. He wants to be free.





	Blackbird

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Blackbird](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/334672) by The Beatles. 



> I took canon from the book and the movie because there are things I like from both. This is kind of based off of Blackbird by the Beatles! Please let me know what you think!

The wounds on Stan’s face were still bleeding as he sat on a log and Eddie dabbed at the blood with a clean gauze pad. Stan flinched every time the pad touched his face, but Eddie stopped commenting on it by the third time. Bill sat on one side of him and held his hand while Mike stood behind him and played with his hair. Richie and Beverly were smoking on the side while casting the occasional nervous glance in Stan’s direction. Ben was seated near Eddie and handing him things as he requested them. “I hope it’s dead.” He can hear Eddie mumbling it under his breath and Stan doesn’t comment. This was before the blood oath and Stan and Eddie are currently the only ones with wounds to bear from the evil entity in the sewers.

Stan also hoped to never have to face the clown again. Everyone seemed to be starting to forget the details about what happened, but Stan still remembered. They couldn’t remember the color of the pom poms on the clown’s suit-- orange. They also forgot some other small details about their encounters with It. Stan still remembered, though. He remembered every detail about the clown with a painful sort of perfection. It would sometimes come to him in the middle of the night and Stan would wake up with a cold sweat and a fear in the pit of his stomach. Since his encounter, a night light sat in the corner of his room. Stan would unplug it when his friends came over so that he could hide it from his friends, but this would leave him as the last to fall asleep among his friends. Stan was too scared of what lurked in the dark.

There’s a blackbird in a tree near where everyone was sitting. Stan tilted his head to watch the bird, trying to find something to focus on other than the pain in his face. Eddie is talking about the kind of infections that he could get from being in the sewers when the wound happened and Stan almost finds it amusing that someone covered in vomit from a demonic entity is talking about possible infections. He doesn’t comment, though. Instead Stan watches the blackbird in the tree and smiles as it starts to make some noise. As he focuses on the bird, the pain in his face starts to dull.

* * *

 

“When I die, I’m going to come back as a bird.” Stan says, turning to Bill.  His face was bandaged properly and they’re watching the birds. Bill never really enjoyed birdwatching, but it calmed Stan down so he pretended that he did.

“W-why?” Bill turns to look at Stan, wincing when he sees the bandages that Eddie had wrapped around the other’s face. Neither boy really wanted to go home so it made sense for the two of them to be sitting together while Stan watched the birds. Bill wasn’t ready to go and pretend that none of this happened while his parents pretended that both of their sons had died. Stan wasn’t ready for the questions that his parents would ask upon seeing the injury.

“That’s a _Zenaida macroura_. Or a mourning dove.” Stan mumbles, pointing a bird in the tree. A silence fell over the pair as Bill waited for Stan to answer the question. Stan would answer the question, but he had to think about it. “In this body.. I feel like a bird with broken wings. I want to fly away, but I just can’t.” he finally says, glancing at Bill. It was true. Stan wanted to leave Derry more times than not, but he was too scared to follow through on any of his plans to run away.

“One day I’ll be free. One day nothing will plague me.”

“I h-hope so, Stan.”

While Bill was hoping that one day Stan would overcome the things that plague him, Stan was planning on one day never having to think about it again.

* * *

 

The others were still around, no one was quite ready to go home after dealing with such a horrific experience. Stan didn’t like how uncomfortable he felt in his own skin when he thought about what just happened. He felt so _dirty_ and the boy didn’t know how many baths he’d have to take before he didn’t want to cut himself out of his own skin. Stan scanned the faces of all of his friends and an idea came to his mind. Richie was tossing rocks into a pile while Eddie sat beside him and traced over the words on his cast with his finger. Mike was near Richie and trying to throw his rocks farther than Richie. Ben and Beverly were side by side, but neither seemed to be talking.

Stan cast a glance at Bill who seemed to suddenly interest himself with a thread on his shirt. Sighing, the boy got up and walked into the woods. He was in search of something sharp and he was delighted when he found a discarded Coca-Cola bottle. Any thoughts of where the bottle might have been or how dirty it could be stayed away as Stan picked it up and smashed it against a rock. With careful fingers he searched through the shards for one to his liking.

Stan walked back through the weeds with a decent sized piece of glass in his hand. “We should all promise that we’re going to come back and defeat It if it isn’t really dead.” he started, walking towards the center of where his friends were standing. They looked up with a surprised, yet understanding look on their faces. Slowly everyone got to their feet and walked towards Stan. He cut everyone’s palms one by one until he was the only one left. “Maybe I should just slit my wrists instead.” he mumbled, looking at the piece of glass in his hands rather than at his friends.

Bill cast a worried glance at his friend and thought about saying something, but the moment was over too quickly as Stan’s palm was now bleeding. Everyone held hands as they swore to come back if It wasn’t really defeated. It was after this that people started to go home.

* * *

 

Things had faded for Bill as he got older. His memories of It had almost disappeared completely, his stutter only came back in times of raw emotion, and Bill couldn’t exactly remember what happened to Georgie. All he remembered was that he had a brother when he was younger, but something happened and now things were different. Sometimes it bothered Bill that he couldn’t remember more, but he would never dwell on the topic. It gave him a headache whenever he thought about it for too long.

“Do you remember what happened to your face?” he had asked Stan one day. The boy had looked at Bill with an embarrassed frown, but hadn’t answered right away. After a few moments he shook his head and mumbled a weak ‘no’, but Bill knew that Stan wasn’t telling the truth. Yet, he never pushed the topic. The two had known each other for long enough that Bill knew Stan would talk about things if and when he was ready. Something told Bill that they had been through something big together, they all had. That something may have been the source of the faint scars around Stanley’s face, but, again, he never allowed his mind to sit on the issue.

“I’m going to die one day.” Stan starts, eyes focused on a mother bird in a nest with her eggs. There was a pause before Stan realized what he said. “I mean, we all are.” he added, after a moment. This time he glanced at Bill who had been laying on his stomach while he wrote in his notebook. They were both seniors in high school and it seemed like that was all Bill did nowadays. Stan understood. He figured if he had forgotten everything the way the rest of the losers had then maybe he’d have a hobby to take up all his time so he didn’t hurt his mind trying to think about what he didn’t know. Perhaps bird watching _was_ Stan’s own way of coping with everything that happened. He wished that he had forgotten as well, though.

“I’m going to come back as a bird. I’ll be free. I can go wherever I wish and I’ll be safe.” he added as he watched a bird fly away from a tree. It was so high up in the sky, Stan wished that one day he’d know what the world looked like from that point of view. “I think I should have been born as a bird and not a human. I feel like my wings are broken. I feel trapped. I want to leave.” Stan’s voice sounded desperate and sad as he stared at the sky.

After a few moments he let his eyes fall shut and he swallowed thickly. “We all want to leave, Stan. Remember? Beverly was _dying_ to get out of Derry. When Richie left he had a hard time saying goodbye to all of us, but you know just as well as I do that he hasn’t thought about any of us since then. Eddie hated to admit that he’d be the same way, but he hasn’t written to any of us since he left. Ben still comes around, but you and I both know that he’s dreaming of something else. The only person that seems content here is Mike. He seems happy with his job at the library and he seems happy with the farm.” came Bill’s voice. Stan opened his eyes to look at Bill once more and sighed.

“Are you going to turn on us and never look back?”

“Are you?”

Both boys fell into a silence as they both knew the answer, but Bill didn’t know that Stan’s answer wasn’t what he thought.

* * *

 

 _“You have to come back.”_ Mike’s voice rang in Stan’s ears as he told his wife that he was going to take a bath. The last time he took a bath was when he was a child and he could still feel the slime of the sewers on his skin. As Stan turned on the water, he heard an owl by the window of his bathroom. His mind was suddenly back to when he was sitting with his friends after fighting It. He thought he still remembered everything, but thoughts came rushing back that hadn’t crossed his mind since he was eleven years old.

Stan thought about people he hadn’t seen in years as he stared out the window in search of the owl. He remembered staring at a mourning dove when he decided to cut everyone’s palms for this exact reason. There was a bittersweet laugh as Stan remembered what the mourning dove stood for. It’s name meant death, but the bird symbolized anything but. It was a sign of life, renewal, hope and optimism. Perhaps he was hopeful that he would feel that way when the time came to go back to Derry.

Stan had given up searching for the owl and was now rifling through his bathroom for a straight edge razor. The world felt anything but hopeful right now. He found the razor and climbed into the tub. Suddenly a new memory came to mind as Stan felt the warm water envelop him and he remembered making a joke about slitting his wrists when they made the oath. The white scar on his palm stood out as he stared at the blade in his hand. How different would everything be if he had just done it then? At that age, had he known that he’d give in to his memories?

* * *

 

The last thought that passed through Stan’s mind before he closed his eyes forever was that he’d finally be able to fly.

**Author's Note:**

> I know the blood oath scene that I rewrote isn't exact, but I hope it worked! I also know that there isn't a lot of actual stenbrough, the fic ended up more Stan-centric


End file.
